by StarmanSkye » Fri Jun 02, 2006 1:52 am
In this rare instance, the victim's wife had the great presence of mind to turn-on a hidden tape-recorder before she was ordered from the house, possibly suspecting the Tennessee lawmen serving a probation violation arrest on her husband were up to something bad. In that few allegations of abuse have the advantage of secret audio or video/photographic recording providing evidence (and in the absence of evidence, allegations usually won't be made) one can only wonder how prevalant violence and abuse of authority really are in the present pro-fascist climate of anything goes, legal 'niceties' and human rights be damned. <br><br>Yet another aspect of how the idiotic, hypocritical war on drugs is a national horrific disgrace causing way more harm to society than any amount of drugs on their own ever could -- as well as the enormous economic cost and the damage to families, undermining the rule of law and destroying citizen respect for the police and public institutions. Given that torture occurs in the US with at least nominal endorsement by the whole chain of law enforcement command, one can only imagine how much more given to violence and abuses US troops would be in a hostile war zone where there's little incentive even for just maintaining the shadow pretense of respect for human rights.<br><br>In the case of the policemen engaging in torture as part of their jobs, at the end of the day they went home to their families, no doubt feeling they had done their bit to make the nation and their communities a better place. Thus, torture was 'normalized' as just something necessary one did on the job.<br><br>And so goes the slippery slope of reason that justifies committing almost any depraved barbarity for a 'good' and sufficient cause.<br><br>What goes around, etc. (Look OUT!!!)<br>Starman<br>******<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://justiceanddrugs.blogspot.com/2006/04/police-torture-captured-on-tape-5.html">justiceanddrugs.blogspot....ape-5.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Police torture captured on tape; 5 deputies go to prison <br><br><br>On July 8, 2004, five police officers -- sheriff's deputies, auxiliary police, local police -- went to the home of Eugene Siler, in Campbell County, northwest of Knoxville, Tennessee, ostensibly to arrest him for a probation violation.<br><br>Siler's wife and son were in the home, and were allowed to leave. Before Mrs. Siler left, she surreptitiously turned on a tape recorder.<br><br>The recording <<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://wms.scripps.com/knoxville/siler/siler.mp3>">wms.scripps.com/knoxville...siler.mp3></a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> which you can hear from a link from the Knoxville News Sentinel <br><<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/text/0,1406,KNS_347_28813,00.html>">www.knoxnews.com/kns/loca...3,00.html></a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> or the excellent, 60-page transcript which law enforcement made of the recording <<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://web.knoxnews.com/pdf/silertranscript.pdf>,">web.knoxnews.com/pdf/sile...ript.pdf>,</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> reveal police officers systematically torturing Siler. On almost every page of the transcript is an indication of Siler being beaten. They threaten to break his fingers. The officers get a car battery charger and hook it up to his testicles and his nose. They threaten to shoot him.<br><br>After Siler complained, the officers lied about the beating -- until word of the tape recording came out.<br><br>All of the officers have been sentenced to multi-year terms in federal prison.<br><br>The News Sentinel website <<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/text/0,1406,KNS_347_28813,00.html>">www.knoxnews.com/kns/loca...3,00.html></a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> also has copies of various documents in the case, such as sentencing memos.<br><br>Joshua Monday, the officer who seemed to inflict most of the beating, defended himself <<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://web.knoxnews.com/images/pdf/campbellcounty/monday_sentence.pdf>">web.knoxnews.com/images/p...tence.pdf></a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> at sentencing:<br><br>"Mr. Monday was a law enforcement officer in a county besieged by the drug epidemic sweeping this nation, and his frustration overcame his better judgment on July 8, 2004.<br>Monday received a sentence of 72 months."<br><br>Is there a drug epidemic in the county? It arrests more people for drug offenses than for any other crime -- even drunkenness and DUI <<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.fedstats.gov/mapstats/arrests/county/47013.html>.">www.fedstats.gov/mapstats...013.html>.</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>This case is an aberration, of course, but since such recordings are rare it is hard to assess how common aberration this behavior is. But a reading of Drug War Chronicle's Corrupt Cop of the Week column demonstrates that this behavior occurs nationwide. Of course, DRCNet's Drug War Chronicle had the story in early 2005: <<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/376/thisweek1.shtml>">stopthedrugwar.org/chroni...ek1.shtml></a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>***<br>Synopsis, tinyurl link:<br><br>May 28, 2006 <br>Police torture in Campbell County, TN <br>When Tennessee law enforcement officials showed up at the home of Lester Siler, who they suspected of drug use, they asked Lester's wife and son to leave. They didn't know that Lester's wife had turned on a tape recorder in the kitchen. <br><br>When Lester exercised his constitutional right not to sign a consent to search his house, these officers spent the next two hours torturing him. They beat him with bats and guns, held loaded guns to his head, threatened to shoot him, dunked his head in the toilet, burned him with lighters, attached his testicles to a battery charger, threatened to cut off his fingers, and threatened to "go get" his wife and take his child away from him. Then they arrested him for "evading arrest".<br><br>News here: <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://tinyurl.com/nx5f3">tinyurl.com/nx5f3</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br><br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=starmanskye>StarmanSkye</A> at: 6/2/06 1:40 am<br></i>
